Dream and a Dead Man
by Alyssa2
Summary: [OLD] Outside Macalania, after Zanarkand kindred souls find equal footing in the night.


Dream and a Dead Man  
-  
The night can be thought of as a time for peace, a time for rest and calm and the silence of fear. It is the domain of dreams.  
  
Youthful lips half twist in a smile at that thought. If this is the domain of dreams, then he is king of all the world, so long as the starstrewn darkness hangs over Spira, a silken curtain for the sleeping realm.   
  
This is his time - they play blitzball at night, most often, and he would find himself most at home now in that glowing pool with the hundred colored lights and the stars in the sky above the water - but there is no silence in this night, there is no solace. He is afraid.  
  
The airship lurks a short distance away, a sleeping dragon, a great machina leviathan risen from the sea. It is a reminder of the pact - the desperate alliance that most of Spira would disdain. They have sought the aid of the desert people - the machina people - the men and women with sunshine hair and spiral eyes who love this world as much as those who serve Yevon. The boy who stands alone outside the forest of jewels can see that among these people, a smile means the same as it does to any other. He has never known hatred for them and finds it impossible to learn.  
  
He wonders what boundaries exist between his world and Spira - what they must be made of, that Sin may cross them where nothing else may touch the long-dead machina city, his ancient, ever-new home. No longer, however, does he wish to go home. No more will he live the dream, apart from the reality that is Spira - the reality that is Yuna's smile.  
  
Relief, a great cascade of emotion that lifts him even as it drowns him, an overwhelming lightness in his heart - that smile will not be stifled, those unmatched eyes will not close but to sleep. It is very nearly a guilty feeling - they have destroyed an ancient tradition to keep those eyes open - but the dream knows that they will come to silence the destroyer, that the dreamers will then sleep dreamlessly forever, and that he himself is crusading for his end.  
  
That is the part he cannot bring himself to accept.  
  
He draws the sword - beautiful, deadly, his father's sword that reflects the scarred man's eyes in its scarlet blade - and hefts it, studies the edge, notes the nicks and dents that come from earnest use, some new, some old.   
  
He wonders.  
  
"You should be asleep."  
  
Ungracefully, he startles and drops the sword, turning to face the man behind him with a sheepish smile.  
  
"Couldn't sleep. Too much on my mind - you know?"  
  
A short chuckle from the elder, who does not move from his spot. "I know."  
  
"So, uh... what about you? Or, don't unsent need to sleep?"  
  
He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth - stupid, stupid, yes, just remind him of the unclean death, bleeding into the mountain snows, losing his breath forever outside the walls of holy unholy Bevelle - and Auron shows no sign of distress or injury, though the dream feels his words *must* have cut deeply the heart that does not beat...  
  
"Sorry, I--"  
  
"It's optional."  
  
There is a quirk of humor in the dead man's voice as he steps forward to stand beside the waking dream.   
  
He is the crimson man - robed in blood and crowned in star-speckled night, holder of the black sword, dead man walking, bringer of death - and the boy, whose capable once-innocent hands hold his father's sword, has never felt more comfortable in his presence.   
  
Neither of them are real. He knows this now, and finds it comforting.  
  
"Auron," he says, jubilant voice now serious. "Auron - where do we fit in?"  
  
The slight quirk of a single ashen eyebrow is his only response.   
  
"You and me. You're dead and I'm... just a dream. Spira is what's real. You don't belong here any more and I never did. So - where do we fit?"  
  
Auron does not respond. He only looks at the stars, and the expression in his single eye is thoughtful.  
  
The boy looks down, crouches, takes his father's sword in hand and stands. He wonders.   
  
He sets his hand to the blade.  
  
The cut is thin, shallow - nothing more than a sanguine line drawn across his palm, bringing with it a stinging pain and a sense of almost relief. He is real enough, it seems, to bleed.  
  
The dead man turns suddenly, his face a strange mask of confusion, worry, and horror as he beholds the boy, the sun child, staring quietly at his bleeding hand, the ghost of a satisfied smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. His blood stains the moonlight edge of the crimson sword.  
  
A single rust-colored eye narrows slightly as Auron begins to understand.  
  
There is a soft rustle of stiff cloth as he shrugs his left arm free from the confines of his scarlet coat.  
  
"Let me see it," he says.  
  
The boy blinks, and presents the man with the hilt of his sword. He holds it in gloved hand, lifts it to the moon and studies its edge, the owner's blood aready drying on the cool metal.  
  
There is no visible expression beneath his collar as he sets his own bare hand to the blade, and with one quick stroke sends a new stream of blood to join the stains left by the dream. Silently he passes the sword back, and in accepting it, the dream understands what Auron has done.  
  
He looks up. Two eyes of oceanic blue meet with one the color of rust and dried blood, and the dream smiles and impulsively reaches out to clasp the old warrior's wounded hand.  
  
The contact is strange, surreal - the blood that flows, almost sluggishly, against the young man's already drying cut seems neither cool nor warm, and he wonders if Auron's touch is always like this - a seeming ghost of sensation but that the man is there, and solid - or if he is being allowed to see the dead man's true face.   
  
Auron does not pull away from the touch but clasps tightly in return, and a pact is made, a promise beyond words, an understanding, a reconciliation - all are forged and sealed in this mingling of blood beneath crystal stars.   
  
"Where do we fit?"   
  
Tidus' eyes narrow just slightly, hearing his own question echoed back to him in a smiling tone, and now he knows, the as-yet-unspoken answer, and smiles back as Auron speaks the shared thought:  
  
"Wherever we can find a place."  
  
-  
end 


End file.
